Many retailers utilize Shopify to get their online storefront up and running, only to realize later they are not able to compete effectively against their competitors due to some severe limitations of the solution, e.g. scalability, user experience, etc. Shopify is an excellent platform to start selling online quickly. But, as you invest in your brand and marketing to attract more customers to your storefront, you quickly realize that you have outgrown the capabilities of Shopify. You are not able to make the necessary changes to your storefront to remain competitive in the marketplace. Customers expect a pleasant user experience. If this is something you are experiencing today and you need to replace Shopify, the following are some key factors that you need to keep in mind for a new ecommerce platform.
Plug-and-play platforms
like Shopify lack the scalability you expect as you grow your business. You know the term crawl, walk, run. Shopify can get you from crawl to walk in your e-commerce journey. Unfortunately, you will soon realize that Shopify will not let you scale for the ultimate ‘run’ phase. If you plan to manage an online storefront, as well as a brick and mortar store to allow for buying online with in-store or curbside pick-up, Shopify will not be able to support you. Want to offer a loyalty program to your online customers? Shopify will not be able to support you. And if you want to tailor your storefront for a unique customer experience, Shopify will not be able to support you. So, Shopify’s platform limitations will hinder you from expanding your customer base.
Multinational Markets
Do you sell globally with multiple currencies, languages, tax rates or text display styles (left to right vs right to left)? If yes, you are out of luck with Shopify. Because Shopify mostly supports storefronts for merchants in the US and UK with features, payment processing and language options specific to these two countries. Therefore your Commerce platform needs to support localization out-of-the-box if you plan to sell in South America, Europe, the Middle-east or Asia.
User Experience
If you want to provide your customers with a unique storefront experience to differentiate yourself from the competition, you are limited with Shopify themes, which are built using their proprietary programming language. Even if you choose to take on the task of customizing Shopify themes to suit your new requirements, it will be extremely difficult to find qualified and cost-effective developers. So the better choice is to use a solution based on a JavaScript headless commerce storefront. Headless storefronts are the wave of the future, providing more flexible and cost-effective capabilities. Unfortunately, Shopify does not support headless commerce capabilities.
Search Ranking
Search Engine Ranking for Google, Bing or Yahoo is based on Schema Markup to structure microdata. The effective implementation of microdata is critical for a better search engine ranking. But unfortunately, most Shopify themes don’t support the Schema Markup. Some third-party applications can be used to circumvent this challenge. However, it will only add to the cost and complexity of ongoing maintenance.
Security Concerns
Unless you are using Shopify Plus, you will not have a dedicated SSL Certificate and your customer transactions will not be executed within a secure SSL environment. So without SSL compliance, you run the risk of losing your online shoppers. No one likes to shop on a non-SSL compliant e-commerce site.
Are you currently experiencing any of the challenges listed above? If so it may be time to take a look at upgrading your eCommerce solution with the SAP Commerce Cloud Platform. SAP Commerce Cloud is the most flexible industry leading platform for both B2C and B2B storefronts today. And, ASAR America can help you migrate from Shopify to SAP Commerce Cloud in a matter of a few weeks. For more details please contact us!